This book focuses on two issues related to human figures: realtime dynamics computation and interactive motion generation. In spite of the growing interest in human figures as both physical robots and virtual characters, standard algorithms and tools for their kinematics and dynamics computation have not been investigated very much. "Simulating and Generating Motions of Human Figures" presents original algorithms to simulate, analyze, generate and control motions of human figures, all focusing on realtime and interactive computation. The book provides both practical methods for contact/collision simulation essential for the simulation of humanoid robots and virtual characters and a general framework for online, interactive motion generation of human figures based on the dynamics simulation algorithms.

Politics, gut reactions, leaps of faith, and assumptions will never drive a successful business. With barriers to start a company being lowered every day, the rapid influx of new startups throughout every industry, and the constant chaos from within existing organizations, logic and sound decision making are commonly replaced with swift moving actions with only the short-term in mind. Decision makers are constantly moving to make businesses simpler, more fluid, more agile, and better. In this disaster of chaos one simple concept is easily left behind: thought. More specifically, what gets left behind is forethought. In The Scalability Coefficient, software expert and entrepreneur Trevor Hall outlines a new method of analyzing your business so you can accommodate the steady pace of modern business, while pushing your organization to success with complete, thoughtful decisions based off facts. Through the design of this engineering-centric method of business analysis, Trevor will describe the method of dissecting and organizing your business into its most atomic pieces and how to logically rebuild your thoughts as a holistic unit. By creating an organization's "Scalability Coefficient," you will have a new tool based directly off the facts that shape your company. And with that tool, you can make swift decisions to gain the highest level of efficiency both for the short-term while always considering the long-term visions and goals. Following an example of a fictitious business through the analysis, The Scalability Coefficient will describe the concepts through practical application which you can then apply to any company, team, or project. It demonstrates the complexities of a seemingly simple company by disassembling it into logical pieces, them piecing it back together with logic and thought, forming its custom "Scalability Coefficient" along the way. The end takeaway being the Coefficient, which acts as a fact-driven formula for driving critical business decisions.

Your genius-level guide to Excel excellence Excel Portable Genius covers the key features of Microsoft Excel in a concise, fast-paced, portable format that provides the perfect quick and easy-to-follow reference for novices and experienced users alike. Written by seasoned tech expert and trainer Lisa A. Bucki, it answers the nine key questions Excel users are most likely to face in their work and adds some hot tips and advice on this incredibly useful--but sometimes difficult-to-learn--program's lesser-known features. Build formulas to perform powerful calculations Format data to make it easy to find interpret and to highlight key results Sort and filter to organize or display specific information Chart data to pinpoint changes and identify trends Communicate results by printing and sharing Complete with a comprehensive index and extensive illustrations complementing straightforward instructions, this is the ideal guide to mastery of the world's most popular spreadsheet program.

Recent advances in computing, communication, and data storage have led to an increasing number of large digital libraries publicly available on the Internet. In addition to alphanumeric data, other modalities, including video play an important role in these libraries. Ordinary techniques will not retrieve required information from the enormous mass of data stored in digital video libraries. Instead of words, a video retrieval system deals with collections of video records. Therefore, the system is confronted with the problem of video understanding. The system gathers key information from a video in order to allow users to query semantics instead of raw video data or video features. Users expect tools that automatically understand and manipulate the video content in the same structured way as a traditional database manages numeric and textual data. Consequently, content-based search and retrieval of video data becomes a challenging and important problem.
This book focuses particularly on content-based video retrieval. After addressing basic concepts and techniques in the field, Content-Based Video Retrieval: A Database Perspective concentrates on the semantic gap problem, i.e., the problem of inferring semantics from raw video data, as the main problem of content-based video retrieval. This book identifies and proposes the integrated use of three different techniques to bridge the semantic gap, namely, spatio-temporal formalization methods, hidden Markov models, and dynamic Bayesian networks. As the problem is approached from a database perspective, the emphasis evolves from a database management system into a video database management system. This system allows a user to retrievethe desired video sequence among voluminous amounts of video data in an efficient and semantically meaningful way. This book also presents a modeling framework and a prototype of a content-based video management system that integrates the three methods and provides efficient, flexible, and scalable content-based video retrieval. The proposed approach is validated in the domain of sport videos for which some experimental results are presented.
Content-Based Video Retrieval: A Database Perspective is designed for a professional audience, composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level students in computer science and electrical engineering.

This volume on financial and economic simulations in Swarm marks the continued progress by a group of researchers to incorporate agent-based computer models as an important tool within their discipline. Swarm promotes agent-based computer models as a tool for the study of complex systems. A common language is leading to the growth of user communities in specific areas of application. Furthermore, by providing an organizing framework to guide the development of more problem-specific structures, and by dealing with a whole range of issues that affect their fundamental correctness and their ability to be developed and reused, Swarm has sought to make the use of agent-based models a legitimate tool of scientific investigation that also meets the practical needs of investigators within a community. Swarm's principal foundation is an object-oriented representation of active agents interacting among themselves and with their environment. To this base layer it adds its own structures to drive, record and portrait the events that occur across this world. The specific contents of any world, however, are up to the experimenter to provide, either by building them from scratch or by tapping previous contributions. This book is notable in assembling a rich array of such contributions, which are significant in their own right, but which can also be mined to extract the reusable elements in their respective areas of finance and economics. It also presents three interesting software additions with tutorials in the form of simple financial and economic applications. A Swarm meta-language closer to a natural language', the use of internet-augmented Swarm for experimental economics, and a Swarm visualbuilder will meet the challenges launched by other agent-based modelling competitors. The Swarm community at large can benefit greatly from the lead that the growing field of computational economics is taking to address its own needs, as represented by this book.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

The spread of the Internet into all areas of business activities has put a particular focus on business models. The digitalization of business processes is the driver of changes in company strategies and management practices alike. This textbook provides a structured and conceptual approach, allowing students and other readers to understand the commonalities and specifics of the respective business models. The book begins with an overview of the business model concept in general by presenting the development of business models, analyzing definitions of business models and discussing the significance of the success of business model management. In turn, Chapter 2 offers insights into and explanations of the business model concept and provides the underlying approaches and ideas behind business models. Building on these foundations, Chapter 3 outlines the fundamental aspects of the digital economy. In the following chapters the book examines various core models in the business to consumer (B2C) context. The chapters follow a 4-C approach that divides the digital B2C businesses into models focusing on content, commerce, context and connection. Each chapter describes one of the four models and provides information on the respective business model types, the value chain, core assets and competencies as well as a case study. Based on the example of Google, Chapter 8 merges these approaches and describes the development of a hybrid digital business model. Chapter 9 is dedicated to business-to-business (B2B) digital business models. It shows how companies focus on business solutions such as online provision of sourcing, sales, supportive collaboration and broker services. Chapter 10 shares insight into the innovation aspect of digital business models, presenting structures and processes of digital business model innovation. The book is rounded out by a comprehensive case study on Google/Alphabet that combines all aspects of digital business models. Conceived as a textbook for students in advanced undergraduate courses, the book will also be useful for professionals and practitioners involved in business model innovation, and applied researchers.

These four volumes present innovative thematic applications implemented using the open source software QGIS. These are applications that use remote sensing over continental surfaces. The volumes detail applications of remote sensing over continental surfaces, with a first one discussing applications for agriculture. A second one presents applications for forest, a third presents applications for the continental hydrology, and finally the last volume details applications for environment and risk issues.

This book extends the conventional two-dimensional (2D) magnet arrangement into 3D pattern for permanent magnet linear machines for the first time, and proposes a novel dual Halbach array. It can not only effectively increase the radial component of magnetic flux density and output force of tubular linear machines, but also significantly reduce the axial flux density, radial force and thus system vibrations and noises. The book is also the first to address the fundamentals and provide a summary of conventional arrays, as well as novel concepts for PM pole design in electric linear machines. It covers theoretical study, numerical simulation, design optimization and experimental works systematically. The design concept and analytical approaches can be implemented to other linear and rotary machines with similar structures. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, R&D engineers and graduate students in electronic engineering and mechanical engineering who wish to learn the core principles, methods, and applications of linear and rotary machines.

Give life to your designs and keep your CAD skills fresh with Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and Mastering AutoCAD LT 2021 AutoCAD continues to be the tool of choice for architects, project managers, engineers, city planners, and other design professionals, and when the industry experts need to learn the latest CAD techniques and trends, they turn to Mastering AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Packed with real-world examples, straightforward instructions, and downloadable project files, this edition of this bestselling AutoCAD reference has been fully updated for the latest features from the 2021 version of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. From getting familiar with the interface to preparing for Autodesk AutoCAD certification, Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021 gives CAD professionals command of the software's core functions and complex capabilities. Develop AutoCAD drawings from concept to creation Use hatches, fields, and tables Work with dynamic blocks, attributes, drawing curves, and solid fills Apply 3D modeling and imaging techniques Customize your interface and configure template settings and styles Get ready for the Autodesk AutoCAD Certification exam Whether you're seeking on-the-job certification or just looking to dream big and draw, Mastering AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021 is the ultimate guide to all things AutoCAD.

The popularity of object-oriented concepts, design, and programming has stimulated the need for a database system that enables a straightforward process to store and retrieve object instances. Object-Oriented Oracle explores object-oriented features and techniques in Oracle DBMS. This book describes comprehensive and fundamental aspects of object-oriented data modeling and implementation in Oracle. It covers the implementation of structural aspects of an object model, including object types, collection types, object referencing, nested tables, and inheritance structures, as well as the behavioral aspects including encapsulated member procedures and functions. Object-Oriented Oracle discusses the complete cycle of database design using object-oriented concepts, implementation of object-relational Oracle, and data manipulations using member procedures/functions and object-relational queries. Object-Oriented Oracle contains a wealth of information, such as case studies in every chapter, as well as exercises at the end of each chapter which helps readers to absorb the topics better, all reasons this book is a necessary collection addition for academics, researchers, educators, and IT professionals everywhere.

Water Resource Modeling and Computational Technologies, Seventh Edition provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the applications that computational techniques have in various sectors of water resource engineering. The book explores applications of recent modeling and computational techniques in various sectors of water resource engineering, including hydroinformatics, irrigation engineering, climate change, hydrologic forecasting, floods, droughts, image processing, GIS, water quality, aquifer mapping, basin scale modeling, computational fluid dynamics, numerical modeling of surges and groundwater flow, river engineering, optimal reservoir operation, multipurpose projects, and water resource management. As such, this is a must read for hydrologists, civil engineers and water resource managers.

Interactive Video-on-Demand Systems: Resource Management and Scheduling Strategies addresses issues in scheduling and management of resources in an interactive continuous-media (e.g., audio and video) server. The book emphasizes dynamic and run-time strategies for resource scheduling and management. Such strategies provide effective tools for supporting interactivity with on-line users who require the system to be responsive in serving their requests, and whose needs and actions vary frequently over time. With an emphasis on responsiveness and transient performance, this book elaborates on dynamic strategies for managing and scheduling resources in Video-on-Demand/Multimedia systems. Unlike previous books, this volume presents an unprecedented detailed analysis of the start-up and departure of streams. It gives a comprehensive evaluation of various techniques as workloads are varied in multiple dimensions (including arrival rate, data rate and length of play). Interactive Video-on-Demand Systems: Resource Management and Scheduling Strategies collectively addresses multiple issues including QoS, throughput, responsiveness and efficiency. The solutions discussed in this volume are particularly valuable to practitioners who are building digital library, interactive multimedia and hypermedia servers. Interactive Video-on-Demand Systems: Resource Management and Scheduling Strategies is an excellent reference for researchers, practitioners and educators in the field of multimedia systems, and may be used for advanced courses on multimedia systems and Video-on-Demand servers.

This proceedings volume gathers selected, peer-reviewed papers presented at the 41st International Conference on Infinite Dimensional Analysis, Quantum Probability and Related Topics (QP41) that was virtually held at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, from March 28th to April 1st, 2021. The works cover recent developments in quantum probability and infinite dimensional analysis, with a special focus on applications to mathematical physics and quantum information theory. Covered topics include white noise theory, quantum field theory, quantum Markov processes, free probability, interacting Fock spaces, and more. By emphasizing the interconnection and interdependence of such research topics and their real-life applications, this reputed conference has set itself as a distinguished forum to communicate and discuss new findings in truly relevant aspects of theoretical and applied mathematics, notably in the field of mathematical physics, as well as an event of choice for the promotion of mathematical applications that address the most relevant problems found in industry. That makes this volume a suitable reading not only for researchers and graduate students with an interest in the field but for practitioners as well.

Successful games merge art and technology in truly unique ways. Fused under tight production deadlines and strict performance requirements, shaped by demanding player expectations, games are among the most complex software projects created today. Game AI Pro: Collected Wisdom of Game AI Professionals covers both the art and the technology of game AI. Nothing covered is theory or guesswork. The book brings together the accumulated wisdom, cutting-edge ideas, and clever tricks and techniques of 54 of today's top game AI professionals. Some chapters present techniques that have been developed and passed down within the community for years while others discuss the most exciting new research and ideas from today's most innovative games. The book includes core algorithms that you'll need to succeed, such as behavior trees, utility theory, spatial representation, path planning, motion control, and tactical reasoning. It also describes tricks and techniques that will truly bring your game to life, including perception systems, social modeling, smart camera systems, player prediction, and even an AI sound designer. Throughout, the book discusses the optimizations and performance enhancements that enable your game to run while maintaining 60 frames per second.

This handbook collects the most up-to-date scholarship, knowledge, and new developments of big data and data analytics by bringing together many strands of contextual and disciplinary research. In recent times, while there has been considerable research in exploring the role of big data, data analytics, and textual analytics in accounting, and auditing, we still lack evidence on what kinds of best practices academics, practitioners, and organizations can implement and use. To achieve this aim, the handbook focuses on both conventional and contemporary issues facing by academics, practitioners, and organizations particularly when technology and business environments are changing faster than ever. All the chapters in this handbook provide both retrospective and contemporary views and commentaries by leading and knowledgeable scholars in the field, who offer unique insights on the changing role of accounting and auditing in today's data and analytics driven environment. Aimed at academics, practitioners, students, and consultants in the areas of accounting, auditing, and other business disciplines, the handbook provides high-level insight into the design, implementation, and working of big data and data analytics practices for all types of organizations worldwide. The leading scholars in the field provide critical evaluations and guidance on big data and data analytics by illustrating issues related to various sectors such as public, private, not-for-profit, and social enterprises. The handbook's content will be highly desirable and accessible to accounting and non-accounting audiences across the globe.

This book systematically and integrally introduces the new security management theories and methods in the e-commerce environment. Based on the perspective of dynamic governance of the whole process, starting from the theoretical framework, this book analyzes the gap between the current situation and requirements of security management, defines its nature, function, object and system, and designs and constructs the whole process security management organization and operation system of e-commerce. It focuses on the core and most prominent risk control links (i.e. security impact factors) in e-commerce security, including e-commerce information and network security risk, e-commerce transaction risk, e-commerce credit risk, e-commerce personnel risk, etc. Then, the tools and methods for identifying and controlling various risks are described in detail, at the same time, management decision-making and coordination are integrated into the risk management. Finally, a closed loop of self-optimization is established by a continuous optimization evolution path of e-commerce security management.

This book explores how corpus linguistic techniques can be applied to close analysis of videogames as a text, particularly examining how language is used to construct representations of gender in fantasy videogames. The author demonstrates a wide array of techniques which can be used to both build corpora of videogames and to analyse them, revealing broad patterns of representation within the genre, while also zooming in to focus on diachronic changes in the representation of gender within a best-selling videogame series and a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). The book examines gender as a social variable, making use of corpus linguistic methods to demonstrate how the language used to depict gender is complex but often repeated. This book combines fields including language and gender studies, new media studies, ludolinguistics, and corpus linguistics, and it will be of interest to scholars in these and related disciplines.

This work presents lines of investigation and scientific achievements of the Ukrainian school of optimization theory and adjacent disciplines. These include the development of approaches to mathematical theories, methodologies, methods, and application systems for the solution of applied problems in economy, finances, energy saving, agriculture, biology, genetics, environmental protection, hardware and software engineering, information protection, decision making, pattern recognition, self-adapting control of complicated objects, personnel training, etc. The methods developed include sequential analysis of variants, nondifferential optimization, stochastic optimization, discrete optimization, mathematical modeling, econometric modeling, solution of extremum problems on graphs, construction of discrete images and combinatorial recognition, etc. Some of these methods became well known in the world's mathematical community and are now known as classic methods.

Multimedia computing has emerged in the last few years as a major area of research. Multimedia computer systems have opened a wide range of applications by combining a variety of information sources, such as voice, graphics, animation, images, audio, and full-motion video. Looking at the big picture, multimedia can be viewed as the merging of three industries: the computer, communications, and broadcasting industries. Research and development efforts in multimedia computing can be divided into two areas. As the first area of research, much effort has been centered on the stand-alone multimedia workstation and associated software systems and tools, such as music composition, computer-aided education and training, and interactive video. However, the combination of multimedia computing with distributed systems offers even greater potential. New applications based on distributed multimedia systems include multimedia information systems, collaborative and videoconferencing systems, on-demand multimedia services, and distance learning. Multimedia Tools and Applications is one of two volumes published by Kluwer, both of which provide a broad introduction to this fast moving area. This book covers selected tools applied in multimedia systems and key multimedia applications. Topics presented include multimedia application development techniques, techniques for content-based manipulation of image databases, techniques for selection and dissemination of digital video, and tools for digital video segmentation. Selected key applications described in the book include multimedia news services, multimedia courseware and training, interactive television systems, digital video libraries, multimedia messaging systems, and interactive multimedia publishing systems. The second book, Multimedia Systems and Techniques, covers fundamental concepts and techniques used in multimedia systems. The topics include multimedia objects and related models, multimedia compression techniques and standards, multimedia interfaces, multimedia storage techniques, multimedia communication and networking, multimedia synchronization techniques, multimedia information systems, scheduling in multimedia systems, and video indexing and retrieval techniques. Multimedia Tools and Applications, along with its companion volume, is intended for anyone involved in multimedia system design and applications and can be used as a textbook for advanced courses on multimedia.

Now in its second edition, this textbook provides an introduction to Python and its use for statistical data analysis. It covers common statistical tests for continuous, discrete and categorical data, as well as linear regression analysis and topics from survival analysis and Bayesian statistics. For this new edition, the introductory chapters on Python, data input and visualization have been reworked and updated. The chapter on experimental design has been expanded, and programs for the determination of confidence intervals commonly used in quality control have been introduced. The book also features a new chapter on finding patterns in data, including time series. A new appendix describes useful programming tools, such as testing tools, code repositories, and GUIs. The provided working code for Python solutions, together with easy-to-follow examples, will reinforce the reader's immediate understanding of the topic. Accompanying data sets and Python programs are also available online. With recent advances in the Python ecosystem, Python has become a popular language for scientific computing, offering a powerful environment for statistical data analysis. With examples drawn mainly from the life and medical sciences, this book is intended primarily for masters and PhD students. As it provides the required statistics background, the book can also be used by anyone who wants to perform a statistical data analysis.

This book presents a general method for deriving higher-order statistics of multivariate distributions with simple algorithms that allow for actual calculations. Multivariate nonlinear statistical models require the study of higher-order moments and cumulants. The main tool used for the definitions is the tensor derivative, leading to several useful expressions concerning Hermite polynomials, moments, cumulants, skewness, and kurtosis. A general test of multivariate skewness and kurtosis is obtained from this treatment. Exercises are provided for each chapter to help the readers understand the methods. Lastly, the book includes a comprehensive list of references, equipping readers to explore further on their own.

This book is of paramount importance in the fields of engineering and applied sciences, given that through the values obtained by these procedures, many structures, like spillways of dams and highway culverts, are designed and constructed. The main aim of this book is to provide procedures for implementing many probability distribution functions, all of them based on using a standard and a common computational application known as Excel, which is available to any personal computer user. The computer procedures are given in enough detail, so readers can develop their own Excel worksheets. All the probability distribution functions in the book have schemes to estimate its parameters, quantiles, and confidence limits through the methods of moments and maximum likelihood.